The Human Hunter

Monsters are all around us. They do not have to look hideous or petrifying. They can appear normal and seem to live daily life similar to us. A husband and father in Anchorage, Alaska was living two different lives. To his wife, kids, and community he was a friendly normal man that owned a bakery in town. On his dark side he tortured, rapped, and murdered over a dozen women. What he did to these women was inhuman. This monster was born 1939 in Iowa, and his name was Robert Hansen.
Society has a major impact on us and how we view ourselves starting at a young age. When Hansen was a young teenage boy Katie Serena described him in her article “Robert Hansen- The Serial Killer Who Hunted His Victims Like Animal”, as ,“He was skinny, painfully shy, and spoke with a stutter, an impediment that would result in years of mockery.” He grew up insecure about himself and was an outcast due to the mockery. Never really had friends and was known as a loner. “As a social outcast, he took refuge in time spent alone, and over time became an avid hunter, channeling his rage and insatiable need for revenge on those who mocked him into stalking animals”( Serena). He spent majority of his time alone and practiced hunting. He soon became a good hunter and found a sort of comfort and happiness from hunting.
Bullying can be defined abundant number of ways, and it does not always have to involve physical harm. It can just be verbally bringing another person down. Well, either way physically or mentally bullying someone will have some negative effects. For example, “ Victims of bullying are at elevated risk for experiencing mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem and poor school performance”(Williford). Since Hasen grew up being made fun of, he became a insecure adult, and overall felt like a pathetic human being. He tried to make something of himself and not feel as pathetic by joining the United States army reserve. For awhile he did, but it didn’t last long. He still did not fill the void that was created growing up.
In another article Written mainly by Melissa Jones called “How Bullying during adolescence Affects Personality” it states that “Due to the victimization during adolescence, males may have difficulty with their relationships with women…”. For Hasen his relationship with women was not at all remotely close to good. He married two times, the first ended up in a divorce due to being arrested for burning down a school bus garage; as a result, he spent 20 months in jail. After he was released he moved from Iowa to Alaska. Alaska is where he married his second wife and had two kids. This is when his monstrous acts towards women began.
Although Hasen settled down in a small town with his wife and two kids it was not enough for him. “Robert Hansen was still the little boy who had been endlessly mocked as a child and was wrought with an insatiable thirst for revenge”(Serena, Katie). He soon began his revenge. Hasen would rape, torture, and murdered women. Mostly prostitutes and strippers in around their 20’s. Hasen would offer to pay for sexual acts from these women. When they agreed he would chain them up and do inhuman things to these women. Since Hasen had his own little plane; quite often he would load them up and take them to his cabin in Matanuska Valley. When he took them to the cabin area he would set them free giving them hope that they would escape. Unfair like he was, he armed himself with a rifle. Hasen would track the poor girls down and hunt them like animals. “Armed with a hunting knife and a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle, he’d torture them for hours, sometimes days at a time, until he located his prey and shot them like game”(Serena, Katie). Hasen as a child grew up hunting animals and enjoyed it. Now he took pleasure from hunting women. Hansen ultimately enjoyed witnessing these girls have hope then suffer.
Robert Hansen is a monster for doing these actions. They are inhuman and just not right. In thesis VI:Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desire by Jeffrey J. Cohen it explains “… Monsters serve as secondary bodies through which the possibilities of the other genders, other sexual practices, and other social customs can be explored”. Hasen falls into this category since he went out of social customs that are considered morally okay. Making women suffer and punishing them for his own amusement is not at all what society considers to be acceptable. He had killed over a dozen women without feeling empathy towards the victims. Rapped and tourtured even more all over a course of twelve brutal years. He went beyond limits in society that no man should pass and for that Robert Hansen is a monster.
The only reason this monster got caught was due to a 17 year old girl prostitute running down the street handcuffed and barefoot searching for help. The police found her and asked her what had brought her to the mental and physical state she was in. She said a man handcuffed her, raped her and tried loading her on to a small plane to take her to his cabin in the forest.Luckily she escaped while he was preparing the plane for take off. The 17 year old girl described the brutal man that had done this to her. Robert Hansen fit the description . At first the police were sceptical if the girl was even telling the truth. Although, the police soon started investigating even with the uncertainty. After awhile of investigating and searching Hansen’s house they found a map with 17 X’s on it. It was the killing sites of the women.Since the beginning Hasen kept telling the police that the girl was lying and that he had not done any of the things she described. After finding the map and some other things in his house he did confess to some murders. He even helped the police locate some missing bodies that he killed from the map. They found quite a few, although some bodies still remain missing to this day. He was only charged for four of the murders. Hasen did admit to murdering some not all and even confessed to rapping and taking advantage of the girls.They also found out that sometimes he would let these women go aftering rapping and torturing them, but would threaten if they said anything about it. Robert Hansen was sentenced to life in prison in Seward, Alaska in 1984 for four murders . He later on died in 2014 while still in prison.
Robert Hansen grew up insecure due to the mockery he grew up with. It later lead to bigger issues. As he became a adult, he tried to find ways to make himself feel better. Which many did not work. Sadly, the one that was successful was awful and unimaginable. He received comfort from taking advantage of women, mostly prostitutes and strippers, then murdering them. Hasen took it even a step further by killing these girls like animals. He put his skills of hunting to horrible use in the least words. He crossed limits that should never have been crossed.

Bibliography
Hugh-Jones, Siobhan and Peter K. Smith. “Self-Reports of Short- and Long-Term Effects of Bullying on Children Who Stammer.” British Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 69, no. 2, June 1999, pp. 141-158. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=24534654&site=ehost-live.
This source has a lot of information about bullying. It helped me understand the subject better. It also helps me prove my point on how bullying can lead to negative impact on the victim. This is also a reliable source due to being a scholarly journal.

Jones, Melissa Renee and Ilie Puiu Vasilescu. “How Bullying during Adolescence Affects Personality.” Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy / Revista De Psihoterapie Experientiala, vol. 15, no. 3, Sept. 2012, pp. 62-66. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=82158734&site=ehost-live.
Since Hasen was mocked growing up this article helped me understand effects it had on him. This is a reliable source since it is a academic journal. I did use a quote from this article, specifically with his trouble with women.
McLaughlin Emily, Donnally Megan, Draper Carrie, Duncan Jeniffer. Robert Hansen. Radford University.Fall 2005. 6 May, 2018. http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Psyc%20405/serial%20killers/Hansen,%20Robert%20-%20fall,%202005.pdf
This Cite created by radford University is a excellent source for Hasen;’s life events. The cite had a timeline with Hansen’s events starting when he was a child. It is a good source to give me background information about Hasen. This source is reliable due to being published by a university.
Serena, Katie. “The Serial Killer Who Hunted His Victims Like Animals.” All That’s Interesting, All That’s Interesting, 9 Mar. 2018, http://allthatsinteresting.com/robert-hansen
I used this article as my main source. It has many details about Hansen’s childhood and how he got caught for his actions. This information seems reliable due to having the author name and publication information.
Williford, Anne, et al. “The Effect of Bullying and Victimization on Cognitive Empathy Development during the Transition to Middle School.” Child & Youth Care Forum, vol. 45, no. 4, Aug. 2016, pp. 525-541. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10566-015-9343-9.
This article goes over bullying, which helps me with my claim of bullying effects. It goes in depth about the consequences and outcomes. This is well is a reliable source due to coming from an academic source.